A blog presenting tales from boarding schools world over. If you have a story about how the life in a boarding school changed you or shaped the foundation for the life you has as an adult, please contact my secretary by email jonase(a)mail-online.dk

Monday, December 20, 2010

This story was originally written on a webpage called tbfight.com, which sadly is not online anymore properly because the boarding school closed sometime in 2009. All rights and credits goes to the author Bryant Hudson, who posted the original story on tbfights.com.

My name is Bryant Hudson. I am a former student (prisoner) at one of the WWASPS programs, Carolina Springs Academy(C.S.A), located in South Carolina miles away from any towns, villages or even major roads. Although it is advertised as a proffesional treatment center for troubled teens, most teens incarserated, as well as myself, find themselves in more of a concentration camp than anything else.

I've heard the horror stories of Jamaica's Tranquility Bay, and Mexico's High Impact. I personly met several students from TB, and I've got to be honest: the WWASPS facilities in the United States, from my experience, are not ran much better. There were no trained proffesional staff whatsoever. No proper education techniques. We, too, attempted to teach ourselves out of old tore up school books (many times several pages were missing). There were ridiculous and pointless rules for everything; EVERYTHING! We were forced to walk on eggshells and look over our shoulders every day while the staff (consisting mostly of minimum-wage-paid men on a power trip) waited with they're fingers crossed for us to break the rules. Breaking the rules led to worksheets, and worksheets led to OP. OP led to restrainment, and restrainment led to severe beatings (we'll get into that later). We were punished for anything you could imagine, including simple every day actions like sitting or standing (without staff's permission) reading, drawing, looking out windows(that weren't barred or covered up) and, yes, even talking! Our basic human rights were taken away, along with all of our legal rights. We couldn't listen to the radio or watch the news. Phone calls were completely forbidden; even newspapers were contraband. The truth is murder convicts on death row have more freedom than we did. Then there were the poor living conditions: cold showers, no doors on the toilets and no swower curtains. No water pressure and poor plumbing. The facilaty was overcrowded. Constantly the staff would take half the boys dorm to a horse stable miles away from the actual facility in a desperate attempt to hide us from DSS. Any medical needs were either ignored or responded to five to six weeks later. When I first arrived there was a serious stomach virus was going around. Everyone who caught the virus were shoved in one tiny room and were given apple juice, no medicine. When I caught the virus I was accused of withdrawing from Cocaine.

Cruel and unusual is the only term I can think of to describe the extreme forms of punishment they used. Although I spent about three months straight in worksheets, I never found myself in OP (observational placement), but I heard the stories, and I heard the screams. If walking past the tiny building, we could hear kids begging the staff to stop. No one really spoke about what went on in OP. I know what I saw, and I saw kids come back after days, weeks, or even months in OP with black eyes, broken glasses, carpet burns on faces, cuts, bruises , and bloody noses. I think the evidence is right in front of us. Untrained staff are restraining kids not even half their size and illegaly beating them. There is somthing seriously wrong with that!! With my own eyes, I saw one of my peers being choked by a staff member because he got out of bed without permission. This man still has a job at C.S.A. On one occasion everyone (exept upper levels) were forced to stand up against the wall with our hands behind our backs for four days and three nights because the directer of the boys facility accused a student of ejaculating in his food. Even though he had no proof we were all punished. When kids were being sent from South Carolina to High Impact or Tranquility Bay, the staff would taunt and torment them until the escorts came. We were often told that our girlfreinds or personal freinds back home were dead and would laugh about it. When one of my close freinds really did die I didn't know if it was real or another sick joke.

That is just a taste of the psychological torment I endured for eleven months at C.S.A. I never really told many people about it. In the program, any information you give to your parents about what is really going on is disregarded as a manipulation letter,and you are punished. I gave up after one month.The reality is that parents are conned into sending their children to these programs with promises of changing their teenager's lives.The truth is they have no idea what is really going on. They have no clue. Those of us who went through this cannot be bitter towards our parents. WWASPS is the real enemy. They are an empire built on conning parents out of there money, not helping teens. When I found this website, I was very encouraged that people are actually speaking out against WWASPS. I am so glad the truth is finally being revealed. It's verry condescending how the WWASPS website shows pictures of kids having fun and how most of the pictures on the website are not even taken at the facilities!

I would strongly advise parents who are considering sending their kid to a WWASPS progamto look at the facts. Four of the facilities have been raided and shut down, and the ones that are open are constantly being investigated and sued on charges of abuse and not having proper liscense. Does that sound proffesional to you?

Aftermath: After more than 10 year the authorities closed the boarding school in 2009. They tried to open under a new name, but it didn't work out. When aminal care groups visited the campus in 2010 they found animals in a such condition that they had to take them into care. The animal abuse case is investigated, but none cared to investigate whether something out of the ordinar happened to the teenagers, who had to live there for many years. Animals count more than human lives

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

This story was originally written on a webpage called tbfight.com, which sadly is not online anymore properly because the boarding school closed sometime in 2009. All rights and credits goes to the author Eric, who posted the original story on tbfights.com.

I'll start off by introducing my self. My name is Eric. I attended both Spring Creek Lodge and Tranquility Bay. My sister also attended Cross Creek Manor and thats how my journey actually starts for me. She was sent there for probably the most cliche reasons you all know of. Doing drugs, running away from home, not going to school, being sexually active etc. So when she was kidnapped in 1996 I had no idea that she was going to be and when i did find out i thought it was really cruel to decieve a person by having them kidnapped but, I knew that she needed help and it lessened the blow for me I guess. I had no idea what the program was about but at the same time I was 16 and i had my own problems so I never cared to find out.

So by about her 7th month in the program she was at the point where we were able to go visit her in Utah so we went. It was February of 1997. Behind my back my sister and my Uncle were having talks of sending me into the program. I had no idea. But, by the time the visit was on its last day I was sitting in the car outside of Brightway in Utah waiting for my Uncle to return and then we would leave, or so I thought. So out comes 2 men telling to get out of the car and go inside with them. At first I laughed and told them they would have to kill me if that was going to happen but, that just made them anngry and one said to me, "Hey kid, you can just walk in with us and not start anything or we can tie you up and make you look stupid in front of all the other kids that are in there." So I just walked in with them while being restrained by my arms by both men. I was there until March 4th and then was shipped off to Spring Creek.

Spring Creek wasn't great compared to life as i knew it at the time but it did beat the hell out of Tranquility bay as I'm concerned. So now I guess I will start with the differences between the two places as I saw it.

I saw and spoke with the director at Spring Creek on almost a daily basis. I can count on one hand the amount of times I saw or have even spoken to Jay Kay at Tranquility Bay. Anyone who spent time at both these places knows the difference between the living condtions. If I spoke of Spring Creek when I first arrived, and I did, I was always punished by the case manager cause someone would tell her that I said this or that and it would make them want to tell their parents in hope of getting transitioned to Spring Creek.

I'm always confused on how to explain my time at TB though. I think it is because i never spent time in OP and hardly ever got into trouble with anyone but, there were deffinetly things that i saw that were just plain and simply WRONG. I'd have to say that not all the staff there at the time I was there were all terrible. There were the ones that were and the ones that were not. I just kept to the ones that i knew were not. I look at the website now and I see the program run a little different than when I was there, or maybe thats just what they want me to think. I have too many opnions to just sit here and type them all right now or to even go on about my whole experince there but if anyone reads this and would like to know about what this place did to me I would be glad to tell. Any questions or comments just let me know. I will come by here from time to time to check up and see whats going on. Thanx for reading what I have had to say for now.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Imagine if...
You left your home...If you didnt know if you would ever return...
If you waited a week to hear from your parents...
If you felt that your life was over...
If you lived like you were in Lord of the Flies...
If you could never see your friends again...
If you didnt even know where you were...
If you lived hundreds of miles away from home...
If you could not talk to your siblings...
If you were placed in an enviorment where everyone but you knew what was going on...

For those who have been to:
SUWS
2nd Nature
Four Winds
Sage Walk
Pacific Quest
Provo Canyon School
Carlbrook
Gateway
Salt Lake City
Utah in General

Post the story of your first day...

It seems that a number of boarding schools are represented on this list. Join and Enjoy. It is actually healthy to share your experiences instead of carrying them around untold.

Subscribe To

About this blog

If you have a story about how the life in a boarding school changed you or shaped the foundation for the life you has as an adult, please contact my secretary by email: ab1959@jubii.dk

------

This website makes use of the Egedal SEO system, which is a combination of SEO utilities developed after employees at Egedal municipality in Denmark made some decision leading to it development

Did you know that Trump might be right claiming the people in United States in general are better of compared to ordinary people in Denmark.

In Denmark treatment of any disease is free unless we are talking children who become depressed or suffers from likewise mental illnesses. Then the parents have to pay for the stays at treatment facilities because the government in Denmark in a try to keep Denmark as the most happiest country in the world has allowed the social services to invoice parents, if they do not keep their children away from a sick parent allowing the parent to infect the children with depression. The law covering this area is number 498 from 2011 combined.

That is the sad fact about Denmark. Mental illnesses are second grade illnesses which can bankrupt an entire family.